Anytime a coach or athlete tells me that they "have all the answers" I get worried. I don't have all the answers, and I certainly haven't tried all the scenarios that exist when it comes to tapering for a big race. In general I take the path of least resistance and try to flow like water or electricity. This week was no different and I took what the week brought me.

On paper this week was a little bit of disappointment. It started with a rest day on Tuesday to work on the bike and get it ready for its voyage on Tribike Transport to Ironman Cabo. However, after the planned rest day, I had expectations of two solid days on Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday went fine with a 20x100 swim on a longer interval of 1:45. Then I backed it up with 40 minute accelerated tempo run. However, in the middle of the night on Wednesday I could tell something was wrong as I had some stomach pains and a low-grade fever.

On Thursday I was supposed to have an aggressive bike workout, but I didn't even bother and opted for an easy cruise ride and felt terrible by the end. On Friday I felt no better and Saturday was no different as a low-grade fever and stomach pains persisted. I opted for two more forced rest days.

Today I got back at it, although I still didn't feel back to 100%. I did the same swim as Wednesday, and I did a 20 minute accelerated tempo run. By accelerated, I started at a 6:00 minute pace and ran the first mile in about 5:55, but ended up covering 3.65 miles in the end in the total 20 minutes which is a pretty aggressive ramp up as I go from 6:00 minute pace to 5:00 by the end.

On paper this week was a disappointment, however I am rolling with it and taking things in stride. Truth be told, my best over-performance ever - relative to my fitness - was at Ironman Kansas 2010. What I distinctly remember about the lead-up was that the previous weekend my best friend got married. I was the best man and in true typical fashion I got very little to no sleep, there was no training, and I got a few truly epics stories out of it. It was a forced break and sometimes there can be a silver lining in forced breaks. I am not making any guarantees for Ironman Cabo, but we will find out soon enough. As always, you can follow all the action on Ironman.com next Sunday.